All posts by D.A. Adams

D.A. Adams is the author of the Brotherhood of Dwarves series and the Sam Skeen saga. He received a Master of Arts in Writing from the University of Memphis in 1999 and taught college English for 16 years. He is the father to two amazing sons and resides in East Tennessee.
New Ramblings

Friday Afternoon Ramblings – 10/11/2019

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We are the shining beacon for liberty to the rest of the world. We are the land of opportunity, the symbol of free speech, the bastion for religious freedom. We are the nation that turned the tide against the Nazis and crumbled the Soviet Union. We are the greatest nation on this planet and have always marched towards the future with optimism and certainty.

And now, we are have abandoned an ally to a foreign invader.

That is not okay with me. That represents a level of cowardice and disloyalty typically associated with cartoon villains. America is better than that. We as human beings are better than that. The Kurds fought alongside us against ISIS and shed their blood to help us take down that extremist foe which very much wants us wiped from the earth. ISIS represents the opposite of free speech and liberty, and we abandoned the allies who fought and died on our behalf.

That’s not okay. Not on any level. Not by any defense. President Trump is unfit to lead. He is unfit to be in charge of the most powerful military in the world. He needs to be removed from office sooner rather than later. We are better than this. We are better than abandoning our allies.

That’s all for now.

New Ramblings

Wednesday Night Ramblings – 9/25/2019

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I’ve made a conscious decision to stay out of politics for the last couple of years, but I think we are at a moment of history when a few questions need to be asked of conservatives who still support Mr. Trump. For most of my life, the stances of Republicans that I have admired most are those on states’ rights, free trade, personal accountability, and fiscal responsibility. My biggest question for conservatives is: Do you believe in and adhere to your principles, or do you support the party regardless of what principles its leaders espouse?

Conservatives claim to believe in states’ rights. However, when the state of California attempts to maintain its own standards for vehicle emissions, the president revokes that authority. Do you believe in this principle or not?

Obviously, Democrats tend to be anti-capitalism, but conservatives have always maintained that they believe in free trade. This president has done more to damage free trade and restrict it than any before him. The trade war and tariffs with China are spiralling the world into a recession. Manipulating markets and pressuring the Federal Reserve to undo the damage the trade war is doing to the economy are NOT free trade fundamentals. Do you believe in markets or not?

For the eight years of Mr. Clinton’s presidency, Republicans railed against his immorality and dishonesty. Slick Willie he was called. Mr. Trump also regularly makes false and misleading statements. Typically outright lies. He also is a womanizer. Do you believe in personal accountability or not? Why are you not as outraged by this person’s behavior as you were Mr. Clinton’s? Is it blind devotion to the party?

When Mr. Obama took office during the Great Recession, conservatives screamed from every outlet possible that the sky was falling because of the national debt and the continuation of the bailouts begun during the Bush administration. Well, under Mr. Trump, in an effort to mitigate the damage done by the trade war, more money has been given to farmers than was used to bailout GM. The national debt has mushroomed to $22 trillion dollars. Where is the conservative outrage over lack of fiscal responsibility? Do you believe in this principle or does it only matter when a Democrat is in the oval office?

My final question for conservatives is this: is there anything this president could do that would make you stop supporting him?

New Ramblings

Tennessee Vols Ramblings – 9/21/2019

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I feel a little “I told you so” is in order. Back in November 2012, I wrote a piece about what a mistake it would be to fire Derek Dooley at that point. The program was still reeling from the Lane Kiffin betrayal, and my point was that for the sake of stability and recruiting, not to mention the opportunity to search for a top-notch coaching candidate, the university should have given Dooley one more season. Of course, at the time, I was shouted down, ridiculed, and lambasted for saying such a thing. I wish I still had some of the screen grabs of the comments I got on social media.

You rabid fans, full of pipe dreams of Jon Gruden and Bill Cowher, wanted Dooley gone. Everything wrong with the program was HIS FAULT. You were the same fans who had said the exact same things about Randy Sanders a few years before, but I digress. In your irrational fervor, you were absolutely certain that a big name celebrity coach was going to waltz in, wave a magic wand, and return the program to glory.

Today, nearly seven years later, your football team is a joke, and I told you so.

Butch Jones was a terrible hire, but he was the best you were going to get amidst all of that chaos. To put it in perspective of how bad of a football coach Butch Jones actually was, he had Jalen Hurd starting in front of Alvin Kamara. That should tell you everything you need to know. To be fair, under Jones, the Vols played fairly well against the mediocre opponents, but your record against ranked SEC teams was 4-18.

Once again, you rabid fans are calling for the coach’s head. This time, Jeremy Pruitt has only been given a season and a quarter to rebuild the program. Barely two full recruiting classes. Still, you have been inundating talk radio with more venom and bile, flooding social media with negativity, and burning jerseys. After a season and a quarter. You idiots have no idea how much you are hindering recruiting and miring the university in less than mediocrity.

Until you accept that a coach, ANY COACH, needs time to bring talent into the program, you will remain a joke. Until you accept that the vast majority of the players currently in the starting lineup couldn’t make the roster of the elite SEC teams, you will remain a joke. Until you accept that it has been 20 years since you have been relevant as a national powerhouse and none of current recruits coming out of high school have seen this school compete for anything that matters, you will remain a joke.

And I told you so.